I swear by Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, I’ll never be a maid of honor again.
I’m going to try my best to be tactful with this story, but my God, it’s a doozy.
It’s rare to find people, especially women are still tight with their crew from high school, let alone middle school. My friend from 7th grade, became my best friend in our early 20’s and now I’m the godmother to her children, and we’re practically sisters. I cannot say the same for my other classmates. Nothing against them, of course, we just so happened to take different paths in life. Some of them, we make a concerted effort to have quarterly dinners and text monthly.
One of my high school classmates is a new mom and I went to her house a few months ago and watched as she soothed her fussy infant. Once he went to sleep, I said to her, “Thirteen years ago we were doing drugs together and now I have the honor of hearing you sing, ‘Jesus Loves Me’ to your newborn. Look at God.”
A full circle moment indeed. There’s a photo somewhere on MySpace of the first time and last time I got high. I’m so happy that Facebook and Twitter weren’t around when I was a dummy.
Then there are friends from high school where we have a mutual respect for each other and a shared past, however, we don’t intertwine our lives. Instead, our way of keeping in touch is through a simple “like” or “favorite” on Facebook, bedazzled with a friendly comment.
One friend, in particular, we were ugly ducklings together in 7th grade and had a shared love of N’Sync. There was a time that we were inseparable. And then last week, I saw her on Facebook and I told myself, “You haven’t spoken to her in two years. No need to see her.”
Then my fingers traveled to Instagram to remove her there as well.
I felt so empowered. To be honest, I’ve had a lot of those moments lately where I’ve had unfollow sprees. Seriously. I go down my timeline daily and ask myself, “Why are you following this person? Their words and actions do not enhance your life.” unfollow
And most importantly, why would I want to follow someone who is a toxic reminder of a painful past?
Storytime kids.
To protect the identity of this person, we’ll call her Lisa. Again, Lisa and I met in middle school. We spent A LOT of time together in high school. She’s apart of my crew of women that shaped my teenage years. Because of our high school demographic, I became enamored by them because a.) I was more than just a black girl to them and b.) individually, we never truly found a fit with the rest of our peers, so it made sense for us to naturally gravitate to each other. We fell somewhere on the spectrum of cool kids and social rejects.
High school came and went, and it was time for college. Lisa and another friend in my group went to the same college, I went off to school two hours away, two other friends became mothers. I had a feeling that Lisa and the other girl in our clique wouldn’t do well together as roommates. Not because they weren’t tight, but instead, our true selves began to seep out. When you’re in a clique with girlfriends in high school, you tend to think alike and dress alike. Come time for college, all of you are entering into a different world where none of you know the rules or how to play the game. In times of war, pull out all necessary resources available to survive, even if that means crushing the people who were once your friends to get ahead.
I began to notice a change in Lisa. She was coming apart at the seams. She had relied on us for the last four years to be her social crutch. The rest of us were like eff this, time to wild out! We were tired of the high school politics and unfair treatment by administrators, college was our time to be the individuals that were muted for the last twelve years.
Lisa wasn’t ready. She began to get a little clingy and wanting to hang out more. While I was all about sisterhood, at the time, I was hot in the ass with a new body (I dropped 40lbs in high school) and my first boyfriend. I couldn’t invest the time that she required. Here in the story, someone is probably thinking, “Tyler was selfish and that girl probably needed her.”
Nah. Keep reading.
Graduation came and went, then came summer, followed by the end of our first semester in college. I was depressed and partly suicidal, depending on who you ask. I hated college. Another story for another day, though. Lisa was two hours away living her best life ever in college at the expense of our other friend. Remember I told you the two of them went to college together? They were also roommates.
Bad idea. During fall break, I was working back home as a cashier. One evening, Lisa and her mom came through my line. I was genuinely excited to see them. I was struggling to fit in on campus, so it was a refresher to see a familiar face. Lisa was in a super chipper mood because she had met this guy on MySpace.
Her newfound romance took place in 2006, a time when Dateline and newspapers were warning parents about the dangers of online predators. So yes, it was weird for her to have met a guy on the internet. Never had I witnessed such a twinkle in her eyes the way she lit up telling me about “Kevin”. She told me about all these sweet things he did for her, sending sweet letters and sending her on scavenger hunts. I was happy to see my friend happy…that is until…
Once Christmas rolled around, I was catching up with my other girls from high school and they told me that Lisa was off the rails, super obsessed about Kevin. They even went as far as to say Kevin was not a real person. We examined his profile pics, there were many, and there was something strange about him. Lisa’s roommate said, “I think he’s found seven different guys with similar features and created a collection of profile pictures appearing to be one person.” My friend was fascinated by CSI and Law & Order. She binged the shows back in the day so much that she ended up studying forensics. Naturally, I thought she was coming up with some insane plot that she’d seen on TV. We sat down and examined the photos. She pointed out distinct similarities and differences in the images. I didn’t buy it.
Then, I went home and pulled up Kevin’s profile again.
I sat in my dark bedroom and carefully studied each photo. Could this be a case of prehistoric catfishing?
Due to time constraints, I must fast-forward through this decade-long tale. Six months later, I was sitting with Lisa and her lawyer at the solicitor’s office as she fought to get a restraining order against Kevin.
Kevin was not 19. He was 35. Kevin was not single. He was divorced with two children. Kevin was not Kevin. Kevin was actually “Jake.” My friend was right, Jake had Googled a number of white males, saving their photos to make one complete fake profile. Jake looked nothing like the young man in the photos. Lisa showed me Jake’s real photo.
It was his mugshot from the registered sex offender list.
Jake fooled Lisa, but not the police. He had met a 14-year-old girl on Myspace and she agreed to meet him in-person. Well, Jake wasn’t the only one with a fake profile. When Jake showed up, the police were there to arrest him. He’d been communicating with officers online the entire time, not the teen girl that he intended to prey on.
And to make matters even worse, he had been stalking Lisa. He once showed up at a football game and sat beside her. She thought he was a random football fan. Nah, it was Kevin-Jake.
We were 19 at the time and I had no bandwidth for this kind of drama. I had no words of comfort for her. She was terrified of this man. And, police could only do but so much to ensure her safety. They pretty much promised to show up if Jake decided to kill her. Lisa’s lawyer explained that law enforcement has no control over Jake being in the same vicinity as her because it doesn’t mean he’s stalking her.
I went back to school to begin the spring semester, my grandmother died a month later, and my depression grew deeper. I was homesick and still finding myself drowning in this foreign sea called college. Lisa and I went a few months without speaking, not because we were on the outs, instead, we were busy. I hit her up from time to time to make sure she was cool, she assured me that Jake was long gone and that she had purchased a weapon for safety.
I was relieved. My friend was okay.
So. Pop quiz time.
If Lisa was no longer communicating with Jake and had a restraining order in place, can someone in the audience please tell me how it is possible for Jake and Lisa to be moving in together?
Two years later, Lisa invited me to meet Jake and his children. The two of them had set aside their differences and fell in love.
Remember I told you that I was a dummy? Well, I was stupid enough to meet this man. To this day, I will never forget those beady eyes staring at me and the big grin on his face. His children were there. Jake shared custody with his ex-wife. And if my memory serves me correctly, Jake was on house arrest.
The energy felt weird in that house and Lisa was elated over this lie she was living. She actually built a life with Jake. They lived in a quaint house, minutes away from our high school.
Five minutes into the visit, I abruptly left.
I got the hell out of there.
I casually told Lisa that I needed to go pick up my nephew and didn’t want to be late. The truth is, I got in the car to call our mutual friend to report my home visit. My friend said to me, “Tyler, why did you go? Lisa is crazy. She invited me and I said, ‘hell no,'”. Cleary I had missed this memo.
Lisa informed me that she and Jake had begun weekly couples counseling. My friend needed all the help that she could get.
Time marches on, we all graduate from college and begin working, trying to figure out how to transition from undergrad to the professional world. Our other friend moved away to grad school, I stayed in Charlotte, and Lisa found a job back home in her field.
Another pop quiz!
If Lisa is living with a registered sex offender and helping to raise his kids, is it a good idea for me to be the maid of honor in her wedding?
She invited me to dinner, showed off the ring and asked me to be her maid of honor. Lisa says, “Tyler, you’re my best friend, will you be my maid of honor?”.
Dear reader, Lisa was not my best friend. I was the person that had entertained her after high school, but we were not best friends. We loved each other dearly because of our experiences growing up, but friends don’t let friends marry pedophiles.
Like a dummy, I told her, “Yes.”
I felt sorry for her, I still do.
For time purposes, I will fast forward another year. After the maid of honor proposal, I avoided Lisa like the plague. I wouldn’t answer her calls, respond to texts, or Facebook messages. It was too much to process. I was fighting my own demons and couldn’t be the friend she needed.
Time for another pop quiz!
Alas, I was fed up with the bullshit and cursed Lisa every word that I had learned since my first listening experience of The Chronic album. I reminded her that this man is a registered sex offender, his first marriage did not work out as a result of his shady internet dealings, and that she was having to support a man 15 years older than her. I remember she burst into tears. My friend finally broke. She’s not an idiot, if anything, she’s one of the most emotionally intelligent people that I know, however, she is clueless, just like me in the lane of love. Her unresolved daddy issues played a role in the reason why she became easily manipulated by this con artist.
I said, “Lisa, have you not noticed that we haven’t spoken in a year? I am unashamed to admit that I talk about you behind your back because I don’t know what to say to your face. You need help. I cannot stand before God and tell a lie.”
On this day, I broke my maid of honor agreement. I didn’t know that I had any type of influence on her or that my opinion about her love life mattered. The next day, Lisa returned her ring to Jake and moved out.
And the pregnancy? It was a false alarm. Praise God Lisa did not marry this man or have his third child. Lisa was finally granted the space to become the woman that she was created to be. We were 23 at this time and she was finally starting to live on her own.
My brothers and sisters, I wish this were the end of this sordid tale of lust, romance, and registered sex offenders. As the title suggests, my friendship with Lisa ended because I was her maid of honor. Well, I was.
I have yet to begin to tell you about her second engagement, why I was foolish to become her maid of honor, her racist motives, the failed marriage, and why we haven’t spoken in two years and probably will never again.
This blog is so damn long. Care to hear part two? Simply comment or tweet me and I’ll be back soon to finish this saga.
(Note: I have not edited this blog. Please forgive any poor grammar and misspellings. Well, the grammar is how I speak, so I’m not really sorry.)
Girl Please Finish